The Guilty Mind
by MissMinoque999
Summary: She was nine when she discovered she could do things that weren't considered normal. Especially for little girls. A story told through a collection of one shots. Fem Charles Xavier
1. A beginning, a burden

**'Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind'**

**-William Shakespeare-**

* * *

She was nine when she discovered she could do things that weren't considered normal. Especially for little girls.

"Charlotte," her mother's soft, temperate murmur washed over her like a stream at its source-trickling over the harsh edges of jagged rocks, young and ignorant in its journey to greater triumphs.

But she felt it. In her brilliant mind. She felt a tumultuous waterfall, palpitating in its course, skilful in its experience and destruction. It hailed down on her brain, digging into its uneven ridges. It quivered up her spine, through her cerebellum, bursting through her cortex until its very force burst her skull apart. A balloon was expanding in her mind, growing, growing, until all that was left was the image of broken glass replacing chalky white fragments of cranium bone, the pungent scent of premium brown whisky superseding metallic wafts of scarlet red blood.

Charlotte felt it. Foreign emotions cleansing her, the water scalding hot, boiling her dry. Weeping tears leaving raw pink flesh, vulnerable to the sharp knife of metal and words and secrets; hidden so deeply even the proprietor knew not of their existence.

She knew pain, disappointment, fear. She was different. An oddity.

Well, she knew that was true. A fact.

In more ways than one.


	2. A torment, a tutelage

**'When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.'**

**-Henri Nouwen-**

* * *

There are many forms of pain...emotional, physical...brutal, aching. It can lash out at you like a whip-sharp, quick, leaving angry red marks marring mind and skin. It can be aching and unbearable, it never seems to end-it traps your entire being in a helpless struggle against its torment and slowly breaks you down to your very core.

Pain blemishes what is pure, leaving remains of a dull bitterness that both haunts and engulfs you as if you were drowning. Because if you drown, you are helpless; you sink, sink, sink as your armouring body attempts to rescue your failing lungs that swell with liquid and you gasp, gasp, gasp for useless breaths. If only you could swim, if you had strength powerful enough to overcome it, ignore the water swirling round you, holding you in oppressive fingertips that tattoo your skin with blotchy purple contusions.

Through her life, Charlotte had seen the many faces that pain took.

Physical pain was the most common, but most people underestimated the fragility of the mind. The mind grew to have many imperfections, its pure form scarred by righteous morals, discrimination, the opinions of others. Sometimes the mind grew so dark, so desolate, it was almost impossible to find the light of liberation among the caliginous cloud that swallowed the soul.

Charlotte was used to depression, having felt it in herself and others, despite desperate attempts to conceal and forget. She also knew of the pain that defaced the surface, the barrier protecting the vulnerable fleshes pumping and churning to keep you working properly, often waning. Other forms of poison and malice were able to deform them: the consumption of drugs, of potent liquids that inebriated the mind and body and caused a pleasant blurriness, an escape from the reality and the imperfections of others and herself.

So she was and expert in the the many masks of pain and the forms it took. She felt the pain of a new born child, as it screamed its throat hoarse, red-faced and delicate . She felt the pain of those who were dying, you felt not mainly fear, but an odd sort of resignation, an acceptance that Charlotte supposed she would never really understand till the time of her death. A final peacefulness.

Her expertise made her older than her years, she grew wise to the darker sides of life and the things it cruelly snatched away from those who did not deserve it.

But she lacked experience. At least compared to him.

She knew of misery, heartbreak, helplessness, anger. But she only _knew_.

Erik Lehnsherr's pain made her think again. Evaluate the experience she thought she had and rename her gathered knowledge. It made her consider the possibilities her mind held, and the minds of others she could save. The minds which she would not manipulate internally, but would guide with words and morals, make perfecting imperfections and be a salvation. It sounded cruel in these words-she was no Machiavellian.

She was Charlotte Xavier, and she felt it in her nature to rectify pain. To save them. To experience. To understand them, to understand _him_.


	3. A romance, a reckoning

**'A thousand times I've failed  
Still your mercy remains  
Should I stumble again  
Still I'm caught in your grace'**

**-Hillsong United, _From The Inside Out_-**

* * *

Charlotte was not a person to be unhinged by romantic relationship. In fact, she was rather qualified.

Charlotte was not one to shy away from sex, she would happily flirt with anything walking on two legs and was often rewarded with a night of excitement, raunchiness and passion. Her lovemaking was ardent and unfaltering and resolved. It lead to countless zealous nights full of lust, adulation, love. It was palatable.

She fell in love with every mind she read. She lived for their faults, she consumed their roaring emotions of jealousy, judgement and tenderness like a personal supply of oxygen. She was greedy with her gathering of human thoughts and feelings: the hopeless dreams of people, and the disappointment of those who had achieved theirs, but were left with only their own burdening body to feed their growing greed and yearning for affection, acclamation and recognition.

Humans wanted to leave their mark on the world, to remain immortal even after death, to create something that would be ever lasting. Ensuring the continuity of their superiority and possession of this world. In reality, this is a more sophisticated way of stating it is the natural obligation to achieve survival-no matter the cost. Their advancement over the other creatures of the Earth allowing them to explore and live in a more complex and effective manor. For thousands of years, that has been the key to our success.

In Charlotte's relationships, there were no secrets. Perhaps that's why she felt they were always so close, yet so distant. She knew the life of the person in seconds, this allowing, at least on her part, to form a closer connection, an unbreakable bond forged by what could never be unseen. But there were no secrets, she knew their thoughts, their past. She could hear in her mind the words of others who scrutinised her faults; could look through their precious eyes and see what they saw of her. It was almost destructive.

There was nothing they could give to the relationship, for she knew everything. There was no discovery, no learning. It was so plain, so boring. It often did not end well.

Charlotte had seen the minds of many different people, tenderly grazed their bodies with her fingertips and shared not just memories, but touches, bedding and kisses.

So she found herself falling in completely in love every time, but the love was always different.

Charlotte had never loved like this. This love was innocent, brutal, wise, harsh, tormented.

Like the man she fell in love with.

Their love-making felt closer than she had ever imagined was possible. It was not a requirement, it was a nexus in their unorthodox relationship. Charlotte felt complete, more than ever before. Like she did not know she had missed something until she had gained it.

And that was what made its loss so much more obvious.

Charlotte was confused, at first, when she could no longer feel his innocence, his brutality, harshness and torment in her head, his ability to be wise.

Then she felt anger at his fierce resolve, at his stubbornness to not consider the implications of his actions.

Then the reality of his abandonment hit her full force like a blow to the chest. It beat and beat at her lungs and heart like the enraged fists of a boxer struggling to stay conscious. Her breaths ran short, flowing out of her like a hurricane wind in uneven, stagnant breaths. Her heart had surrendered, straining to undertake its assigned role at keeping her body working properly. Even through Charlotte knew it would never work right again.

And so another face of pain was unsheathed before her very eyes. Heartbreak. As she watched, incapable of acting, her face pale and forlorn as another excruciating pain tore not only her heart, but also her mind. His gold treasure, painstakingly slow, rammed languidly through, and their common enemy fell-his face blank under her control. The coin passed, the only other indication of his past suffering at unclean hands, and so did the transition from what they were to what they are.

She never was sure if he felt the same, even after the years that passed in their rivalry. She lead one side and her lead the other, in the never-ending war between man and mutant. To achieve a common ground among those who urged to survive. To achieve a line between rage and serenity between humans, the mutants and the man who cruelly snatched her soul and eroded its iron exterior. Its haphazard welds, that had secured the scars for so long, abruptly torn in two by his magnetising force, reeling her in like a fish tempted by bait, and smashed into a billion shards of frangible crystal-both ethereal and grotesque, permanently strewn across the floor of her heart.

Everything had changed.


End file.
